Share this story

Pity the poor credit card. In these days of smartphones, tablets, and sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads, they just seem so retro.

But they're getting a makeover. In Singapore, MasterCard has unveiled a credit card to be released in January 2013 that includes "an embedded LCD display and touch-sensitive buttons," the company said this week. Eventually, this card might use its display to show "real time information such as available credit balance, loyalty or reward points, recent transactions, and other interactive information." But for now, the technology will be used to generate one-time passwords as an extra security measure.

"The MasterCard Display Card, manufactured by NagraID Security, looks and functions almost exactly like a regular credit, debit or ATM card, but features an embedded LCD display and touch-sensitive buttons which allow a cardholder to generate a One-Time Password (OTP) as an authentication security measure," MasterCard said. "From January 2013 onwards, all Standard Chartered Online Banking or Breeze Mobile Banking users will use the Standard Chartered security token card as a new personal security device for higher-risk transactions such as payments or transfers above a certain amount, adding third party payees, or changing personal details."

The idea isn't a new one. It's not even MasterCard's first attempt. The company actually unveiled very similar cards in June 2010 for use in Turkey, and they have been rolled out to other countries such as Romania. Visa launched almost identical cards in Europe last year, and a company called Dynamics showed off some newfangled credit cards with displays at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. MasterCard touts the cards as a way to demand extra tokens from customers without making credit cards a hassle to use.

Stealing and using credit card data is far too easy, so adding two-factor authentication technology into the cards themselves strikes us as a good idea. But even without newfangled cards, the process of how we pay for stuff is getting an overhaul, albeit a slow one. NFC chips, Apple's Passbook, and Google Wallet are among the options for higher-tech ways to pay. The ubiquity of smartphones may make it more likely that phone-based systems will outpace the adoption of new types of credit cards, especially as these display cards have been around a couple of years without spreading worldwide. But most of us are still using regular old credit cards—and if our next credit cards embed some modern technology to make them more secure, so much the better.